Quotable Quotes: Berkeley Breathed
by Miki Saxon
Berkeley Breathed, Berke to his friends and fans, authored the Pulitzer Prize winning Bloom County comic strip until he chose to move on to other projects (he writes children’s books, designed greeting cards and has a new movie coming out). For those who miss it or were too young to have enjoyed his biting satire in Bloom County you can buy the complete collection in book form.
The amazing thing about Breathed is that no matter what he was always funny and, therefore, unforgettable, “Negative humor is forgotten immediately. It’s the stuff that makes us feel better about our lives that lives long. Much more satisfying. Enter children’s books.”
He voiced something that I constantly wonder about, “I will go to my grave in a state of abject endless fascination that we all have the capacity to become emotionally involved with a personality that doesn’t exist.” This is as true of “intellectuals” as it is of those who swim in the deep end of popular culture; it’s just not as obvious.
He said, “I could draw Bloom County with my nose and pay my cleaning lady to write it, and I’d bet I wouldn’t lose 10% of my papers over the next twenty years. Such is the nature of comic-strips. Once established, their half-life is usually more than nuclear waste.” So true; some comics are now drawn by the children of the originator.
Comics aside, breathed offers up some useful life wisdom.
In a world of warring ideologies that offer no room for comprise I hope these words will resonate and stick with you, “Despite what they tell you, there are simply no moral absolutes in a complex world.”
And finally, the most important thought of all, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”
Something to think about, especially at this time of year.
Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/silwenae/4543865563/
